“That’s a curious statent,” Arlene said. “I am aware I have a few years on you, but I don’t look that old, do I?”
Scarlett considered her. While Arlene did have faint wrinkles and darker skin under her eyes, she didn’t appear much older than forty or so. Younger than Adalicia ndenhall, probably.
She shook her head. “I do not believe you truly think that is what I ant.”
The woman showed a wry smile. “No, but one never knows. You certainly seem to know sothing that I do not, considering your previous words.”
Scarlett raised her hand and gestured at the houses in Freyadow. “Do you know what this place is?”
Arlene studied her for a mont before looking around with an almost casual expression. “I wonder,” she drawled. “Most would have answered a simple village, but that’s not the response you are looking for, is it?”
Scarlett kept her eyes on the woman. She had always been curious exactly how self-aware Arlene was about her situation. Their previous interactions showed that she clearly had so idea that this place wasn’t entirely natural. There had to be a reason she always made them leave before nightfall after all, as if she was aware that outsiders couldn’t stay here all the ti. But it was hard to tell if the woman was actually aware, or if it was subconscious in so way.
Scarlett pointed at a house on the other end side of the village square. It was a single building, with a timber base and a thatched roof. Behind it was a tiny patch of land with a small ramshackle shed that looked like it might collapse any day now.
“That ho belongs to a Gill and Leticia Adlam,” she said. “Gill Adlam is one of the n that tends to the livestock outside the village, while his wife Leticia spends her days performing chores and processing the wool that they gather.“
Whenever she had to spend a day resting here in Freyadow, those two were the ones Rosa convinced to lend out their ho. They were a nice enough couple, even if the accommodations themselves were sowhat lackluster.
She turned to look at Arlene. “Other than when I travel to and from the village, I have never left this area or spoken with any of the villagers. You can personally attest to this, I suspect. Taking that into account, how do you think I know this information about the Adlams?”
“Are you playing riddles now?” the woman asked.
“I am simply attempting to answer your previous question.”
“Is that so? Then I would say that bard friend of yours could have told you. She chard the children easily enough, so it would not be hard to learn about the adults.”
“And what if I tell you she has shared nothing of the sort?”
Arlene seed to consider her for a brief second. “They could have been ntioned in the ga you described.”
“It paid little attention to people whose impact on the overall narrative was that insignificant.”
A laugh escaped the woman’s mouth. “If that’s true, then I suppose I should be flattered that I was in it.”
Scarlett nodded. “If that is how you choose to view it, yes.”
“I do choose so, yes.” Arlene leaned back in her seat. “But I am not one to particularly enjoy riddles, so I will satisfy with these many tries. Tell how you knew them.”
Scarlett watched her closely. It was difficult to tell if she actually gave up because she didn’t know, or if there was so other reason behind it. “I know their nas and what they do because this is not the first ti I visit this village. Nor was our first encounter two days ago our first proper eting.” She waited for Arlene to et her eyes. “…It has not escaped my attention that you have yet to ask what your role in the ga was. Is there a reason for that?”
A knowing smile ford on the woman’s face. “There is. But it is most likely not the reason you are thinking of.” She turned away, gazing out in silence over the village for a while. “I presu that I don’t live to see the end of this ga. Am I right?”
Scarlett paused. “…It depends on the actions of the person who plays the ga. But there are only two possible endings that I know of.”
“From the tone of your voice, am I wrong to assu that my death is the more preferable of those?”
“…No.”
In truth, there was only one real ending to Arlene’s questline. It could only be reached if you fulfilled her final wish. Which ant letting her die.
The only other alternative was not completing the questline, consigning her to endlessly repeating the sa five days and the Freyadow’s demise for all eternity.
“Then what role I had doesn’t matter much, does it? It’s the sa no matter what. As for you…” Arlene turned back to her. “You are here to ensure that I die, aren’t you?”
Scarlett stared at her. The woman said it in such a composed tone, but she could see so much unspoken emotion behind those eyes.
“…It is not my wish to see you dead,” she said.
“But it is your ultimate aim, if you want to achieve your goal here,” Arlene replied. There wasn’t a shred of judgent in her gaze.
“You could simply give the casket.”
The woman looked back at the wooden casket behind her. “You know I won’t.”
“…Why?” Scarlett asked.
“You already know why, or you wouldn’t be asking to teach you.”
Both of them fell silent.
Scarlett found so of her irritation and anger from earlier rising up again, and she wanted to say sothing, anything, to convince the woman. This had never been a matter of Arlene not being able to give Scarlett what she needed. It had always been that the woman refused. And just like in the ga, there was only one way of getting through her stubbornness.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Arlene shifted in her seat to peer up at the bright blue sky. Her fingers ran over the book in her lap. “Two days, you say? Then I would forget about this conversation?”
Scarlett kept quiet.
The woman smiled. “No, I guess I don’t need your confirmation. I know better than anyone what happens in two days. I was just uncertain about what ca after that, but your words have made it clear enough.” She raised a hand and flas took shape above it, forming the vague image of Freyadow. “I thought so of your technique looked similar, you see.” She spoke almost absentmindedly. “How many tis have we spoken like this?”
“…This is the first ti we have ever conversed in this manner,” Scarlett admitted. “But we’ve had dozens of conversations before this. More often than not, it does not prove fruitful for .”
“I can imagine.” Arlene chuckled to herself. “Do I always give you a hard ti?”
“…Sotis, yes.”
“Good. Otherwise, I would have been disappointed in myself. Would have been a waste of an excellent opportunity.”
Scarlett narrowed her eyes. “I had my suspicions that you took joy in tornting .”
The woman’s hand ran through the fiery projection of a village and it dissipated into the air as she looked back at Scarlett with a shrug of her shoulders. “I believe I ntioned having a terrible personality. There’s a reason most of my family pretends I never existed. Several reasons, really, but that doesn’t matter to you. You should have expected as much, though, if I taught you in that ga as well.”
“You did not teach anything in the ga.”
Her eyes widened just slightly. “I didn’t?”
“In the ga, you were simply a…questgiver,” Scarlett said. “The player could learn nothing from you.”
“A questgiver…?” Arlene knitted her brows. “I gave people tasks to complete? Just so that they could grow stronger in a fraction of the ti it took to do the sa? That was my purpose?”
“Part of it, yes.”
“Well, that is disappointing.” The woman shook her head with a sigh. “I can understand it, but it’s disappointing nonetheless.”
“Does that an you know what quests you might have given?”
This was sothing Scarlett had been curious about for a while. The woman had yet to even try giving her any of the quests from the ga, even after she had grown so much stronger than the first ti she arrived here.
Arlene cocked her head to the side. “Several things co to mind, yes.”
“Then would it be too much to ask you to give one to now?”
The system might accept it as an actual quest if Arlene said it out loud, which ant extra skill points when completing it.
The woman let out a small scoff. “Oh, no. You are far too weak.”
Scarlett frowned. “You have seen the proficiency that my skills provide , and the rate at which I grow.”
“Yes, and I’m not impressed. Your control is even worse now than it was before, and you’re not even a third as powerful as you could be. Your flas certainly hold a lot of heat behind them, but anyone above a certain level would find it child’s play to counter them. I thought it was interesting what you were trying to do with the hydrokinesis, but that is still miles behind your other techniques.”
“That is why I wished for you to teach .”
“And it’s also why I would never accept you.” Arlene gave her a long, probing look. “You have tried to convince several tis, haven’t you? And I assu I’ve told you no each ti.”
Scarlett drew her mouth together. “…Yes. Sotis you provide with so guidance, but you always refuse to teach properly.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Did you not tell a re mont ago? It is because I am not strong enough.”
It fit with what Scarlett knew from the ga, where Arlene would only give quests to the player if they were above level fifty. Scarlett actually considered herself stronger than that, but her strength was a bit lopsided and difficult to quantify.
“It’s not about strength,” Arlene said. “It’s about potential. I look at you and I see a conundrum. Power and skill mixed with inexperience and ignorance that suggests laziness. An unwillingness to grow. Soone gifted with talent that they don’t have the will to use. That is what you appeared to be when I first saw you, and I had no interest in teaching soone like that. That was the main reason, at least. My opinion changed later on as I observed you, but that doesn’t matter much if I keep forgetting about it.”
Scarlett stared at the woman. That was the reason? If that was true, then it didn’t matter how much she upgraded her skills. Would she have to search for another person to teach her, after all? Considering her goal, though, Arlene was without a doubt the best teacher she could find. Not to ntion how other people would react to seeing her growth rate whenever she upgraded a skill. She also didn’t know if there were any other mages as experienced with her particular type of magic as Arlene was. When she had inquired into the matter with Adalicia, the wizard had given her the impression that most mages didn’t spend much ti using pyrokinesis and its other-school equivalents in practice.
“All that said…” Arlene considered her for a few seconds. “Knowing what I do now, I don’t see as much of a reason to say no.”
Scarlett blinked. “You are saying that you will teach ?”
“I am saying that now I would accept your request, and for as long as my current mories go.”
The montary joy that had appeared inside Scarlett died out. That ant she would be back at square one the next ti the loop restarted. Would she have to repeat this entire conversation every single ti in order to convince the woman? She wasn’t sure she wanted to do that. She would, if she had to, but the thought didn’t fill her with excitent. Despite how calmly Arlene seed to be taking it, telling a woman that the world she knew was a ga and that she was stuck in a never-ending loop of her own nightmare wasn’t sothing Scarlett took pleasure in.
Even if she might be able to skip the part about her own identity in the future, it was an uncomfortable experience. Presumably for them both.
Arlene seed to watch her reaction, and soon let out a sigh. The woman waved her hand, and more fire appeared above it. The magic was shaped like a wheel, with strands of flas moving at its center in a tiny, intricate whirlpool of interlocking motion.
“Shape your magic into sothing like this,” she said.
Scarlett examined it for a while before raising her arm. She took a breath, trying to focus her attention so that she didn’t lose control like earlier. Then she conjured her own fire. It took on a similar shape to Arlene’s; circular with flas gathered in the middle as a churning mass of movent.
“No, that’s not right. Try again.”
Frowning, she tried once more, and when that attempt failed as well, she tried again and again. Arlene guided her along the way, and eventually, she succeeded in creating sothing that looked almost exactly like hers.
The woman nodded her head in satisfaction. “In the future, when you introduce yourself to , show this exact configuration. That way, we won’t have to bother with the sa bells and whistles every ti.”
Scarlett looked at her fire, eyeing the whirlpool at its center. “Is there sothing special about this structure in particular?”
It looked interesting, yes, but she couldn’t tell if it did anything other than that. It also only took her about five minutes and a small amount of mana to learn, so it couldn’t be that impressive.
“There isn’t, no,” Arlene answered.
“Why would this be likely to convince you in the future, then?”
The woman simply shrugged her shoulders. “Who knows? Call it a hunch. I don’t have the ti or opportunity to teach you anything more complicated, so this will have to do.”
“We have more than one day left,” Scarlett pointed out. “Surely there is sothing you could teach in that ti. The water whips that I am able to create were taught by you, and that took less than one day.”
“Let rephrase that. I’m choosing not to teach you anything more complicated.” Arlene gave her a long, honest look. “For now, I think you should take a break. You’ve been pushing yourself, haven’t you? Magic isn’t sothing you want to practice on a tired mind. Nothing is, really. Take this chance to relax.”
“Ti moves differently here in Freyadow than outside the village, and I am not as affected by exhaustion here. I am not saying that I do not require rest, but it would be a waste to not use any of these remaining two days productively.”
“To , that sounds like even more of a reason to take things slow.” The woman glanced at Scarlett’s fire and it suddenly extinguished itself. “If that bothers you, then you might feel better to know that I am not giving you a choice.”
Scarlett fought back a scowl at having her magic dismissed so easily, and she could have sworn that the woman shot her a smile filled with mirth.
Was Scarlett only surrounded by people that enjoyed tornting her?
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